That's not the point though, even if you mention it only half-joking. If it is down to reaction alone, the one with the gun aimed at your head wins. Period. The point is to shift his focus from wathing your every move to perceived certainty that he is in total control over you.

A 4IP character does not only react in 3/4ths of a second, hge also punches you in the face or casts a spell or lets rip with an assault cannon barrage.

That said, that's; the maximum for anyone not in a drone so half a second ain't an eternity, even if you have 12/13 reaction.

Oh, I'm not saying you can accomplish a heck of a lot in 3/4 of a second. But perhaps you can shift just enough such that the incoming fire is merely horribly damaging rather than instantly lethal.

Try this. Have a friend dangle a dollar bill in the air. Place your fingers on either side of the bill ready to grab it the moment your friend releases it. Tell your friend to get go of the bill sometime in the next 30 seconds but not to tell you when. Most folks will be completely unable to stop the dollar bill from falling to the floor. This is even though they only have to twitch their fingers a fraction, and are intently watching for the bill to drop.

The farther from you the opponent is standing the better, of course. Trying this when he's standing just outside the reach of your lunge might not work so well.

A person's reaction time can be greatly impacted by distractions as well. This is why when going into a hostile environment my main SRM character often drops a goodie bag (or three) somewhere on the way in, that can be remote activated with a mental command. You'd be surprised how distracting it is to the guy pointing the gun at you, when the world seems to explode around him. Additionally, if you are instead just trying a 'hot' exit from the site, the opponent's motor pool going up in flames works surprisingly well in preventing pursuit.

=)



-karma

While it is distinctly possible in real life for someone to pull it off it is rare enough that shadowrun did not want to model you getting the drop on people who are holding an action to plug you. House rule wise I think I'd require a critical success on an opposed initiative test, and they better make there fast draw check because they only get a simple action.

Now a concealed arm slide is an example of a built in distraction, a palming success and they won't see it coming.

But normally you need a

----------------------------->
Look it's a distraction. (the actual line I always use in these situations)

Where did you get that figure? The commonly cited one for braking response time is 2/3 sec.

For the situation posited here (held action, simple trigger), http://www.humanbenchmark.com/tests/reactiontime/index.php is a good simulation. Somebody with a smart gun might even be slightly faster, as no keystroke / trigger motion is required.

Try it. Out of 10 trials, I had 4 that were around 225, and 6 just over 200. Apparently the overall site average is 215Ms. They say adrenaline (such as from holding a gun on a violent criminal) can improve reflexes a bit...

Besides, screw holding the guy at gunpoint to get out cuffs. Its a pretty sure bet one of the guards is just gonna pull out a taser and pop your ass while his buddies have you in the sites.

Was actually quite a while ago, actually. Some psychology class, actually. Dunno, I suppose it'd vary depending on the situation and how much adrenalin was pumping through your system. Which is why I commented it might be as little as half a second.



That'd be the smart thing, yes. Don't talk, don't demand surrender, just pop the taser and deal with the guy when you have him in a cage.



-karma

Yeah, I'm a fan of Adrenaline Rush for sure, thing is...



vs.



means that, according to the rules, Edge can make you go first regardless of a held action, unless the guy with the held action also spends Edge. But, as has been pointed out, anyone can hold an action so long as there are still IPs going on. So, you spend Edge, they spend Edge, they've held their Action, so you hold an Action. Everything cancels out, and it's still just a straight up Initiative contest.


Changing gears for a second here..
Another instance in which I think a surprise test may also come into play is for a hidden smartgun in the arm slides. Since they can be fired with a thought by anyone with the proper setup, a character could be raising their hands to their head and, as part of that action, have the range of motion to point the guns at anyone who isn't directly behind them. But, in this case, a surprise roll does nothing here but negate their reaction/dodge.

Huh. Interesting. Didn't know some of that. XD

So, grabbing someone and using them as a body shield, what would that be, subduing rolls on them?

That's how I would handle it. Tehcnically, the "subduing combat" relates to "take them to the ground and hold them there" but I consider it a rather limited application of the core concept of subdual combat in the first place.
Comparing it to many other forms of martial arts, especially the ones dealing with modern firearms, subdual combat is more about control than getting the opponent to the ground. Especially since when you are both on the ground, you are actually at a disadvantage against more than one opponent.

Hence, why we use the subdual combat for standing holds as well as ground holds.
That could be considered a house roule, though, depending on how literal you wish to take the description of subdual combat:



On the other hand, that interpretation would question the purpose of some of the special combat options available against opponents nin a subduing lock:



My personal interpretation: The reason the character is considered prone is not because it actually is prone, but to use an existing dice pool modifer to reflect the advantage the attacker holds over the locked down target. If you want to take him to the ground, you need an additional attack to knockdown to do so.

This reminds me of a Miami Vice episode when a modern gunfighter type dupes two officers into relaxing because his "hands up in surrender" posture was actually a decent ready position for him to fast draw. His hands were up/palms out but only to face level, and there is very, very little difference in draw time from that position as opposed to hands down by your sides.

Tasers aside, the clear command for hands up should be more explicit...hands on top of your head, interlock your fingers, etc.

RPing the above Miami Vice scene, I'd allow the gunfighter a Con test, although many other methods mentioned here are viable.

This post has been edited by jimbo: Apr 9 2010, 02:02 AM

Hands up at shoulder height is a standard IPSC start position. But it's still slower than having the hands at the gun.

In a class we had a 21 foot drill where a dummy approaches you, then charges you, you needed to challenge it as it approaches, then shoot it and step off the line of attack before it reached you. One Federal agent had serious issues with not getting the gun out in time until he realized he could grip the pistol as he challenged. That made a huge difference in speed.

I've had some training in this in a martial arts class.

First off, we were warned extensively just to cooperate with the guy with the gun instead of taking this risk.

The idea was to be within hand's reach of the gun, with your hands raised at about head height. (The maneuver only works if you're close to the gunman.)

You twist your body left, and push the gun to the right, then grab it with both hands and twist it to point at the attacker. After that's it's follow-up.

My gut reaction says,

There is a loud gunshot followed by a player creating a new character.

Mechanically my gut reaction is that there are two actions taking place on the part of the character,
Drawing the weapon.
And then firing the weapon.

Mechanically for the secguard there is one action.
Pulling the trigger.

Am I missing something?

RL?
I can give you half dozen examples were police and criminals exchange fire where they both miss with the first shot, both shoot each other, cop hits bad guy, bad guy hits cop. And we are talking about distances of less than 10'.
RL, I would bet on a high priced attorney over being able to draw, fire and hit a trained officer wearing a bullet proof vest and trauma plate. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)